Hope Rising

Thank God for morning!  There is nothing like a sunrise to sing hope to the heart.  No matter how big and insurmountable problems seem in the night, hope rises with the sun!

Thank God for spring!  After the long, cold winter, the days begin to be longer, the creek begins to thaw, and the clouds begin to thin enough to let the rays of the sun shine through.  And even in the rainy season of April, there are more rainbows come spring.

Maybe that is why we love to fly in the winter, too.  As the plane gains altitude through the thick, gray overcastting that has been hovering over the even grayer landscape, the hint of blue begins to show through the last wisps of clouds, and the sun that we had almost forgotten was there bursts through!

Easter is resurrection and hope and awareness of a Life force that has been there all along.  As the old Spiritual says, “Ain’t no grave gonna hold this body down!”  Our awareness may be in “dead mode”, but insistent Life keeps pulling at the seed of the divine that was planted in us from the beginning.  And something—a revelation, a tragedy, an accident, an undeserved kindness—will pierce a passage through the clouds or the night or the frozen shell, and a light, a quickening warmth, will burst through.

Despite the darkness, despite the tomb, despite the obscurity of doubt and pessimism, Life will win!  It always does!  It always does!

As the sun rises, so shall your hope;
As the rain waters, so shall His grace 
Coax from the heart so brittle and closed 
A living green sprout in a once-barren place.

As the sun rises, so shall your hope;
Deep snows of winter cannot chill your faith.
Under the freeze-line the root tendrils grope,
Reaching the strength-giving nourishing place.

From the dry branches blossoms will burst.
Grasses will green the fields and the slopes--
Goodness will come from the darkest and worst;
As the sun rises, so will your hope!

--- “As the Sun Rises” by Gloria Gaither ©
2012 Willowmere Pub.

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My Life in Book Bags

Because of Covid-19, students this year are missing graduation as we know it—no processional, no ceremony, no challenging commencement address, no bestowing of diplomas to the cheers of family and friends, no changing of the tassels and tossing of mortar boards into the air, and no emotional hugs and good-byes on the grassy hillsides and parking lots of high schools and colleges across the country. Online salutes and zoom gatherings are just not the same as the traditional pomp and circumstance of other graduation classes.

Thousands of backpacks and book/laptop bags lean against the entry hallway walls in the homes of aspiring students across America.  Will colleges actually open?  Will master’s programs begin on location?  Will internships materialize? 

But this isn’t the end of learning, even if the setting and method of the next chapter of education is uncertain. Take it from me, formal graduation won’t mean that you need to hang up your backpack or that this will be the last bookbag to punctuate your journey.

For years I have carried my life around in bookbags. I suppose that started in high school and college when bookbags were almost a part of my anatomy.  Then my life was split between traveling on week-ends and managing my at-home life.  My reading and writing had to be portable, so I just got new bookbags—one for reading, and one for yellow legal pads for writing prose and song lyrics along with rhyming dictionaries and thesauruses.

 When we had babies, I added a “diaper bag.”  That, of course, is a misnomer.  That bag had much more than diapers in it:  emergency baby food, formula, toys to keep a baby occupied in the car seat, an extra change of clothes, board books....

I can’t remember not carrying my life in bookbags. And I will confess that my purse alone carries enough to survive in a foreign country should I have an extended layover.  Only when purses started being the object of security screening did I reluctantly eliminate by small jackknife, nail clippers (Do they really think I am going to snip through the skin of the airplane with nail clippers?), sewing kit (with dangerous weapons like my grandmother’s thimble, spare needles, and a threader), and my tiny hammer/screwdriver that I could have used to build a survival hut in the woods, if I had to.

Because we traveled with children all those years, I was never without our craft bag.  Every parent knows you can’t be on the bus for a week-end or in a vacation cottage or hotel room for a week without this survival kit.  My craft bag was stuffed with water paints, chalk, construction paper, clay, scissors, tape, a stapler, markers, glue, color books, travel games, marbles, jacks, and books to read.  I could set up shop in arena dressing rooms, airport gates, or any space with a table. Poolside, we could invite newly made friends to join the fun. Once I was detained at an airport in England because I had brought six boxes of sparklers to celebrate our American Fourth of July, not dreaming they would be classified as firearms.

I have always had bookbags lined up in our coat closet, each containing an unfinished writing project on which I was currently working.  Magazine articles in process, unfinished song lyrics, chapters of a book, boxes of note cards I needed to write to thank or keep in touch with friends—there was a book bag for whichever project needed the most immediate attention.  No matter what was on the calendar, I was ready. I could just add the books I was currently reading and those to “prime the pump” for writing. (Does that sound like a Biden metaphor?)

One day I realized that my book bags were spending weeks in the closet waiting to be chosen.  Like a snowball rolling down a winter hillside, my life had gathered other lives.  I had said too many yeses and not enough nos.  Did I think I could contribute my time to every cause, take on too many responsibilities, solve the problems of too many worthy projects?  My writing had opened doors to too many other opportunities, all good things, helpful things, but they were crowding out my central purpose. My book bags were reminding me to refocus on the central priorities, and to remember that family, friends and writing were my main calling. I wanted to be a woman with a portable mission again.

Like the Israelites, waiting to be freed from bondage, I wanted to be ready to listen when God said go.  I wanted to be able to grab my craft bag for a new generation of children.  I wanted to choose my note card bag so as not to lose old friends or miss saying “thank you” for kindnesses shown to me. I wanted most of all to pick up my writing essentials and go.  I wanted to connect the dots of the life I’ve been given, now that I have gained the perspective of hindsight.  I wanted to be open to new things like this blog, celebrating and sharing this “love song to my life.”

So these days I am listening even more to my book bags, excited to pick up the one for today.  When the promised land is calling, I want to be ready to cross any sea to get to it.  May no manna fall or any rock gush cool, clear water and find me distracted by some golden calf and miss it!

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This is The Place

Not too long ago I had coffee with a friend I’ve known for years.  Before we knew each other, we were growing up in the same area of the same state.  Both of our fathers were pastors in similar churches, and I’m pretty sure we went to the same youth camp in the summer.  Our fathers knew each other from pastors’ fellowships and both had a passion for helping new areas establish new churches.  Both served on Boards of Church Extension, my father in our state and hers, eventually, moved to our church headquarters to serve on the national board.

Photo by Angela Kellogg

We really became close friends as adults, and that friendship has grown more important to us both over the years.  We meet as often as our schedules allow just to catch up and share our hearts. Over coffee that day she said to me, “I’m going to have my grandson for two weeks this summer (He is eleven).  I am going to take him to Park Place Church and walk him down the aisle, show him where my mom used to sit, show him the alter and tell him, ‘This is where we pray and sometimes cry; here is where we dedicate little babies and get married and have funerals....’” She went on to basically say she was going to explain the sacred places we both hold dear and the community that has held us both through more chapters of our lives than I could ever share or even explain.  Her precious grandson—only one generation removed from the community of faith—had never been inside a church.

That night I could not get her words out of my mind.  I told Bill about this and spent a restless night thinking about this little guy and so many other kids I know who are without the safe haven of the community of true believers in this chaotic world.  We wanted to somehow share what we were feeling in a strong, maybe even urgent song for families everywhere.  Bill came up with the perfect music for the words that were echoing in my mind from the coffee conversation.

We all need a sacred space where our souls can find peace.  But we need to make sacred again other spaces for us to dwell as well.  Our homes need to be sacred again.  Our porches where we talk, the spaces where we work, our bedrooms and kitchens where we make love and share meals:  these need to be touched with the eternal and made to be sanctuaries of safety and wholeness.

As I write this, I am praying for a purging of anything that has fallen short in what we call the church.  I am asking for healing of our broken hearts and a restoration of a powerful support system of firm believers—the Family of God—full of love, mercy, forgiveness, and grace so that we who claim the name of Jesus can gently scoop up a generation of beautiful kids and their families and love them back to the table where there is already a place set for them.  One thing for sure:  things will never be right or complete until all the children come home.

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